As she does each year, Arboretum director Nancy Braker ’81 led prescribed burns in April and May to improve the health of Carleton’s prairies. The roots of grassland plants are undamaged by such burns, but freed of leaf litter and fed by nutrients from ash, they thrive. Plus, the fire-blackened earth absorbs more sunlight, which benefits unseen microorganisms in the soil.
Within a month visitors likely won’t notice a burn had taken place at all, and next spring flowers will bloom more abundantly. “It’s very counterintuitive,” Braker says. “Fire seems to be such a destructive force, but it can be a very beneficial, life-giving action.”